EXCLUSIVE. The Dutch OTT TV provider Mobile2Morrow (M2M) will terminate its service on May 1, the company wrote to its channel partners.
“We’ve had a great ride, an amazing experience with building our own platform in the past 3,5 years, and with all wonderful people to work with and to meet with,” wrote Edwin Snelderwaard, CEO and founder and Machiel Hamaker, co-founder.
“Even though we’ve managed to get support from many great channels across the world, the number of customers didn’t grow as we hoped it would. We tried various ways to increase, but ultimately in vain.
“We still believe firmly that our concept was the way forward, especially with all great new technologies around the corner, but if the funds run dry and not enough customers come in, you need to draw conclusions at some point.
“We’ve also been looking for parties for investment, but the time this takes is too long for us to sustain at the current rate and therefore we decided to pull the plug and end Mobile2Morrow, with pain in our heart. We will be working on something new in the background and potentially re-enter the great media world again.”
M2M TV was first launched in The Netherlands and Belgium in August 2016 and offered a basic package and a la carte channels in addition. The service was available on the web, iOS, Android and Amazon.
The relative newcomers to the media market managed to sign lots of carriage deals with well-known broadcasters including Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, Motorvision, GoldStar TV, Fighting Sports and TRT. A full channel list can be found on their website.
The news of the closure of M2M TV follows the announcement that T-Mobile Netherlands will be closing down its a la carte OTT service Knippr on June 1.
Broadband TV Views. Although politicians everywhere are calling for TV platforms to offer a la carte pricing, the market does not seem to be ready for consumers to buy only the channels they care to watch. In addition, viewing habits are shifting fast with on-demand growing and live TV declining, so new platforms will have to include both live TV and on-demand.
